AITA for not helping my husband repair his relationship with our daughter after he excluded her from a "guys only trip"?

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Social Media AITA for not helping my husband repair his relationship with our daughter after he excluded her from a "guys only trip"?

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665

Feb 14 2025, 10:55 PM

An eleven-year-old girl gets her first big [blatant] brush with misogyny, courtesy of her sexist asshole father.

A post on r/AITAH: https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/comments/1ipqp3q/aita_for_not_helping_my_husband_repair_his/

AITAMom123 You can read some of the details if you go through my post history. Essentially, my husband has decided he wants to have a "guys only" trip this summer with my son (13 M) and nephew (12 M). My daughter (11 F) is a tomboy who is into sports and fishing and extremely close with her brother and dad, and the three of them often spent a lot of time together. My husband and I discussed this, and I insisted my daughter be included, but he mentioned that he really wants this time with his son and nephew, without any women present. I eventually gave in on the boys only trip, but warned him that our daughter would be hurt, and it was up to him entirely to fix it. He promised me he would.

Ever since my husband told her she couldn’t go, my daughter’s behavior has changed. She no longer hangs out with her brother playing video games, and she has been extremely distant with my husband. Just this past week, during the Super Bowl, while my son and husband were watching the game, my daughter was tucked away in her room. Watching the Super Bowl together has always been a tradition for the three of them to do together (I'm not into sports ball), but this year, my daughter didn’t join them. I asked her if she was okay, and she gave a "yeah" and continued reading a book.

My husband noticed this behavior and tried to cheer her up by telling her he would plan something really cool, just the two of them, but our daughter told him she didn’t want to do anything. A couple days later, my daughter needed to be picked up early from school for a dentist appointment. My husband said he would pick her up, but she texted me, asking, “Please, mom, can you pick me up and bring me?” My daughter also has been getting the school bus in the morning instead of catching a ride with my husband and son, which she typically does.

Now my husband has been complaining to me about our daughter, saying he’s done everything to make it up to her and that I need to step in. I told him she would be hurt by him excluding her from the trip, and it’s entirely his fault she’s icing him out. He says we should be a team and try to fix this together, but he’s the one who caused this hurt, so it shouldn’t be on me to fix it. It’s starting to affect our relationship now, too. AITA?

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Feb 14 2025, 10:55 PM #1

AITAMom123 You can read some of the details if you go through my post history. Essentially, my husband has decided he wants to have a "guys only" trip this summer with my son (13 M) and nephew (12 M). My daughter (11 F) is a tomboy who is into sports and fishing and extremely close with her brother and dad, and the three of them often spent a lot of time together. My husband and I discussed this, and I insisted my daughter be included, but he mentioned that he really wants this time with his son and nephew, without any women present. I eventually gave in on the boys only trip, but warned him that our daughter would be hurt, and it was up to him entirely to fix it. He promised me he would.

Ever since my husband told her she couldn’t go, my daughter’s behavior has changed. She no longer hangs out with her brother playing video games, and she has been extremely distant with my husband. Just this past week, during the Super Bowl, while my son and husband were watching the game, my daughter was tucked away in her room. Watching the Super Bowl together has always been a tradition for the three of them to do together (I'm not into sports ball), but this year, my daughter didn’t join them. I asked her if she was okay, and she gave a "yeah" and continued reading a book.

My husband noticed this behavior and tried to cheer her up by telling her he would plan something really cool, just the two of them, but our daughter told him she didn’t want to do anything. A couple days later, my daughter needed to be picked up early from school for a dentist appointment. My husband said he would pick her up, but she texted me, asking, “Please, mom, can you pick me up and bring me?” My daughter also has been getting the school bus in the morning instead of catching a ride with my husband and son, which she typically does.

Now my husband has been complaining to me about our daughter, saying he’s done everything to make it up to her and that I need to step in. I told him she would be hurt by him excluding her from the trip, and it’s entirely his fault she’s icing him out. He says we should be a team and try to fix this together, but he’s the one who caused this hurt, so it shouldn’t be on me to fix it. It’s starting to affect our relationship now, too. AITA?

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drdee

Feb 15 2025, 1:01 AM

I don't know, in my opinion this looks like an inappropriate reaction from the daughter. Men have the right to do 'men-only' things, and there's some good legitimate reason for, particularly, an older man to spend some time with two younger men (to help teach them to be good men - 'men things' isn't just about sports and outdoor activities). Her father may indeed be a sexist asshole, but desiring some 'boys only' time isn't an indication of that. And it sounds like the father has offered to do something just with her.

Edited Feb 15 2025, 1:02 AM by drdee.

drdee

Feb 15 2025, 1:01 AM #2

Chernobog

Feb 15 2025, 8:45 AM

Man, I am PHYSICALLY feeling this girl's disappointment. It's giving flashbacks to the playground at a new school when I said "okay, girls were always mean to me and only wanted to play stupid games, I have no interest in going down that road again, so I'll go be friends with the boys!" and then the boys physically attacked me, ran off, and I spent recess for the next several years playing by myself.
"Just the two of us" is such an awful, zero-effort cop-out! It makes up for nothing! Clearly what this poor girl enjoys is the camaraderie of her dad AND same-age male relatives! I can attest as the girl who was friends with all male groups, individual boys, and also her dad, when you're a kid her age, the group is by far the most fun. You can blend in better, the energy is diverse and dispersed. And she's eleven, so this may be her last chance to enjoy this environment before puberty hits and every adult in her life has to be fucking weird about it. And if the dad wanted this boys trip to give the kids a puberty talk, he could have fucking said that, otherwise I can't imagine what about this necessitates "boys only", aside from the predictable, inexcusable opportunity to talk all they want about how much they hate women. I hurt so bad for this girl that the only reason her family can give her for this snub is "because she's a girl". Because she's a girl, she doesn't get to have fun with everyone else, she has to have separate girl fun, for girls. Because she's a girl, she will inevitably be excluded from some things, even though being a girl is in no way her fault or choice.

I've been trying to crack the nut on why men feel that even the most reckless, crass, emotionally stunted, "masculine" women among them are still somehow raining on their parade. How? In what specific manner am I cramping your style? "We just don't want girls around"? So... because you said so? When women don't want men around, we can explain our reasoning in great detail. We're often required to prove that case. I think the reasoning for men is actually the same as womens'; not equivalent, the same. Men hinge their entire identities on the idea that they fuck women. They have to compartmentalize us in the very specific fuck dimension, because if we become too humanized outside of it, too "like them", it may force them to reconcile with too many things they don't want to reconcile. It's not a new idea at all that masculinity hinges on othering women and girls at any cost, even if it means alienating yourself a little in the process. Shit like this is where it starts, and I hope that girl's brother and cousin speak up for her and tell Dad they have just as much if not more fun when she's around.

Chernobog

Feb 15 2025, 8:45 AM #3

Elsacat

172

Feb 15 2025, 8:48 AM

I'm so torn on this. I believe in the right to have single-sex activities and spaces, and for dad-son and mom-daughter time for role modeling. But I get how the daughter feels hurt and excluded because of something she could never control: which sex she is. I remember going through similar exclusion and hurt as a kid. I don't even know what the right answer is, other than maybe the dad sitting down and having a real heart-to-heart talk with his daughter, not just a promise to take her on a separate trip and expecting her mother to paper over hurt feelings. Dude, you made the decision to leave her out. Let her know WHY and that it isn't because you don't love her as much as her brothers, or because there's anything wrong with being a girl!

Elsacat

Feb 15 2025, 8:48 AM #4

wormwood

Feb 15 2025, 9:30 AM

She’s 11. As Chernobyl points out, this was her last chance. Her last chance to be a kid, not a girl. I remember 11 so well. The cold shoulder for her father sounds like a pretty reasonable reaction, to me. Why should she spend time with the males in her family? They’ve said they don’t want her around.

Dad could have waited a year or two and had his all male time after the whole fucking planet had already made it clear to her she was a different category of person from her brother.

wormwood

Feb 15 2025, 9:30 AM #5

Sunny

Feb 15 2025, 1:08 PM

I find it ridiculous that this man is asking his wife to step in. She TOLD him what would happen and now that it has he wants help. No. You caused this mess and said you would fix it so fucking fix it. Don't shoehorn your wife in bc you thought it would be easier. It feels like he doesn't care what his daughter's feelings are bc she's hurt but rather that it makes him feel bad. Her feelings are valid and if he accepted that and let her choose how she reconnects it could be an important lesson for her in processing her feelings. As it is she's going to be taught that having feelings daddy doesn't like is unacceptable if you have them for too long. :/

Edited Feb 15 2025, 1:26 PM by Sunny. Edit Reason: Forgot to add the second half of a word

Sunny

Feb 15 2025, 1:08 PM #6

wormwood

Feb 15 2025, 1:22 PM

(Feb 15 2025, 1:08 PM)Sunny I It feels like he doesn't care what his daughter's feelings are bc she's hurt but rather that it makes him feel bad. Her feelings are valid and if he accepted that and let her choose how she reconnects it could be an important less for her in processing her feelings. As it is she's going to be taught that having feelings daddy doesn't like is unacceptable if you have them for too long. :/

This is exactly it, and very much how most heterosexual marriages work; the wife manages the feelings of the children so that the husband doesn’t have to, and doesn’t need to be unhappy with them for long. She does the emotional work for him.
And your final sentence is one of the ways female socialisation works - girls learn that it’s normal for them to be unhappy so long as dad is content, and that it’s adult women’s job to ensure that he is.

wormwood

Feb 15 2025, 1:22 PM #7

(Feb 15 2025, 1:08 PM)Sunny I It feels like he doesn't care what his daughter's feelings are bc she's hurt but rather that it makes him feel bad. Her feelings are valid and if he accepted that and let her choose how she reconnects it could be an important less for her in processing her feelings. As it is she's going to be taught that having feelings daddy doesn't like is unacceptable if you have them for too long. :/

ShameMustChangeSides

Feb 15 2025, 1:57 PM

(Feb 15 2025, 1:08 PM)Sunny I find it ridiculous that this man is asking his wife to step in. She TOLD him what would happen and now that it has he wants help. No. You caused this mess and said you would fix it so fucking fix it. Don't shoehorn your wife in bc you thought it would be easier. It feels like he doesn't care what his daughter's feelings are bc she's hurt but rather that it makes him feel bad. Her feelings are valid and if he accepted that and let her choose how she reconnects it could be an important lesson for her in processing her feelings. As it is she's going to be taught that having feelings daddy doesn't like is unacceptable if you have them for too long. :/

Heyyyy this sounds like MY dad! And my mom DOES always step in for him!

ShameMustChangeSides

Feb 15 2025, 1:57 PM #8

(Feb 15 2025, 1:08 PM)Sunny I find it ridiculous that this man is asking his wife to step in. She TOLD him what would happen and now that it has he wants help. No. You caused this mess and said you would fix it so fucking fix it. Don't shoehorn your wife in bc you thought it would be easier. It feels like he doesn't care what his daughter's feelings are bc she's hurt but rather that it makes him feel bad. Her feelings are valid and if he accepted that and let her choose how she reconnects it could be an important lesson for her in processing her feelings. As it is she's going to be taught that having feelings daddy doesn't like is unacceptable if you have them for too long. :/

Heyyyy this sounds like MY dad! And my mom DOES always step in for him!

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665

Feb 15 2025, 3:30 PM

@drdee I disagree on both of the main points: 1.) that his daughter is having an "inappropriate reaction" and 2.) that the father's "boys only trip" in this scenario was justifiable.

To begin with the latter, I am highly skeptical of any notion that this man needs to show these two younger boys "man things" about being a "good man", when so far I would say nothing from this post suggests he is a "good" human being that should be mentoring children. Overall, I am generally against the idea that fun social activities need to be sex-segregated, especially for men, because so often when men choose to sex-segregate it is to remove opportunities and experiences from female people, which is what I see happening in the Reddit post . Especially in this scenario, I use the word "segregate" because there is nothing that implies to me and that this is a sex-separated trip for a specific acceptable reason. I would be understanding of this being a "boys only" trip, if the reason for the trip was maybe to talk to his son and nephew about male puberty or something like that. Nothing in OP's post suggests that was the reason for the trip. Even then, this certain type of educational "male only" activity does not need to be something that this girl would have been looking forward to. Or at least the father could have spoken with his daughter and explained why he was taking a "boys trip" in some appropriate language for an eleven year old. (Or at least he could have had his wife explain it to her if that would be less awkward.)

And for the former, I honestly think she is doing nothing wrong with her behavior. She has found out her father views her differently than her brother and cousin because she is not male. She was excluded from a fun social activity that she would have greatly enjoyed because she is female. She cannot change that she is female. And now she is learning at 11 years old that even close male relatives like her own father will treat her differently because of this. This is a huge betrayal. And I don't see how what she is doing is that bad. She is being very calm about how she does not want to interact with her father, and to a lesser extent her brother, who both seem like they don't really give a shit about the reason why she is upset. And it's because as sexist males, they do not believe women should be upset over misogyny. They don't even believe misogyny is a thing, probably.

I am wondering if the father has even sat down with the daughter and tried to give an honest apology for doing a boys only trip, like what @Elsacat suggests. I highly doubt it. I assume any apology or explanation from him would just be sexist excuses and doubling down and more gut punches for her about how she needs to just accept her lower-caste lot in life due to unfortunately being born as a deformed human creature with a vagina. But I honestly doubt if he gave any apology at all, because that would have to mean acknowledging that having this boys only trip in the first place was an okay thing to do. And I assume he thinks no, it's fine. I think she has every right to distance herself from misogynists, and that unfortunately includes her own family members.

Young girls grow up in such a world, where they are excluded from fishing/outdoorsy social group-bonding events because "oh it's a boys trip", and then people wonder why ROGD is a thing and why girls suddenly think they can claim they're "boys" and escape all this.

Furthermore, overall, OP's husband dismissing his wife's warnings that this would upset their daughter in the beginning, and then becoming a whiny manbaby when, shocker, the daughter is upset and is not interested in interacting with him, further suggests this man is a sexist loser who excluded her from this trip for all the wrong reasons. Out of this whole ordeal, he has taught his son and nephew that women and girls are different than men and boys (in ways other than just the physical/biological [aka sexist bullshit ways]), and that it's okay to exclude them from things, and that if women and girls get upset over such a thing happening, that is their problem and they should "get over it", and that other women and girls are supposed to side with the men and convince any upset women and girls that this is how "it's supposed to be."

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Feb 15 2025, 3:30 PM #9

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YesYourNigel

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Feb 15 2025, 9:21 PM

#10

(Feb 15 2025, 1:01 AM)drdee Men have the right to do 'men-only' things

Men have spent centuries excluding women from their "man-only" gatherings, socialisation, education, law, society etc. Why would they have any kind of right to keep doing that further? I think when your right is used almost exclusively to subjugate and isolate women, that you don't get to claim it as a right.

I notice there's this tendency to project women's genuine need for same-sex spaces for safety and dignity in a patriarchal world back onto men for the sake of "equality" and "fairness". It's what I like to call the yin-yang fallacy - assuming that anything for women needs to apply to men in reverse. So if women need protection from men and this is the basic right that allows them to navigate the world, men surely need protection from women as well. But really the only thing men want protection from is women's hysterics and them getting in the way of misogynistic bonding.
This "fairness" doesn't need to make sense or be in touch with reality in any way, the point is to apply some arbitrary right to both sides so we can keep pretending men don't uniquely have a problem with patriarchal violence over women and not the reverse.

I also think this is how conservatives can be so on board with female spaces - they're needed because men and women are so fundamentally diferent that ofc women need to be kept apart in their "separate sphere". There is some recognition deep down that there is a safety element to it, but that's really only relevant to prevent another man's property or a Madonna-woman from getting damaged, rather than as recognition that we have a massive problem with men harming and terrorising women to the point of their everyday lives and basic freedoms being compromised. The same conservatives talking about women's spaces will also insist the patriarchy doesn't exist because somehow we live in a world where women both need protection from overwhelming male violence and also don't suffer overwhelming male violence.

Quote:there's some good legitimate reason for, particularly, an older man to spend some time with two younger men (to help teach them to be good men - 'men things' isn't just about sports and outdoor activities).

What reasons? What is this male-on-male bonding? Why can't men ever learn to be good men from women? This whole attitude that men should only listen to men in regards to what a good man is is why we get so many men who either treat women as walking sex dolls, or pretend like they don't based on what another man has told them is "woke".

Quote:I believe in the right to have single-sex activities and spaces, and for dad-son and mom-daughter time for role modeling.

What does this role modeling entail and why does it need to be same sex? I actually never hear about mother-daughter bonding, it's always father-son. It seems to me that a big part of it is that for women, males are often presented as aspiring even if in a roundabout way (as in, if you work hard enough, you might achieve 1% of genius that a man has), whereas men have 0 respect for women and will never listen to women or consider anything women say, even when it's blatantly obvious and common sense. Giving them male bonding in that case doesn't actually fix the problem, unless it's actively working towards getting them to see women as equals by using the only voice male people will listen to - other men.

(Feb 15 2025, 8:45 AM)Chernobog And she's eleven, so this may be her last chance to enjoy this environment before puberty hits and every adult in her life has to be fucking weird about it.

This sentence really hits close to home. I agree with every word you wrote. Boys become keenly aware of girls being inferior sex objects in ways that girls don't, and end up being in endless denial over it.

When I watched Stranger Things, there's a tomboyish character in it called Max, and when she arrived at a new school, feeling lonely and isolated and with a bad situation at home, the male main characters made friends with her, but obviously were trying to do whatever the 10-year-old's equivalent of getting in someone's pants is - they were so fixated on her being Uh GhuRrL and treating her as little more than a love interest. It was so insidious and manipulative and ofc the show never commented on it, just treated it as "Hyuck, that's just how boys are with girls at that age". I felt so bad for her. She just wanted to skate and play in the arcades and feel like a normal kid. She needed real friends, but the boys, who put up a front of being her friends, kept talking behind her back about her being Uh GhuRrL - an exotic creature that exists on a different plane, where all the relationships and kissing and cooking and emotional labour happens.

Quote:Shit like this is where it starts, and I hope that girl's brother and cousin speak up for her and tell Dad they have just as much if not more fun when she's around.

I really wish that happened. Unfortunately, in my experience, it doesn't matter how close you are to boys and men, it doesn't matter how chummy and how many nice things you do, they will stab you in the back if it means listening to and climbing the ladder of male authority. Men do not see shared humanity in women and girls, they see alien creatures that need to serve and prioritise them because ofc that's what women are meant to do, and they do not care when women get screwed over. Not their problem, or, even better, works to their benefit.

For me, friendships with men could always be maintained for a while, but even back in my NotLikeOtherGirls days, true male nature of utter contempt of women would eventually come to the surface, and it always came as a slap in the face to me, me who thought I was saying all the right things about overreacting feminazis and SJWs and surely men would like me and treat me as a normal person and not a hysterical biased matriarchal nutcase if I distanced myself from and turned on other women. But despite all the complaining about women's rights going too far, we all agree that extreme stuff like cartoonish gender stereotypes and rape are bad, right? RIGHT?

I had a friend who had a male friend group and would even openly talk to them about sexual things the same way that the men would talk amongs each other. She ended it when she found out they were placing bets on who'd be the first to have sex with her. It's the same thing with "can men and women be friends?" and men are the ones who overwhelmingly push back on the idea and in fact derisively call it "friend zoning" when it turns out that being friends means...being friends, with no ulterior motives (and they say women are manipulative).

Women don't want to live in this segregated society. That's why they cling onto the delusion that men see them as equals, that men who don't are exceptions or weirdos and that we can bond on a basic human level, because men are the default "normal" human being so we need their approval. Men on the other hand screech about the "friend zone", "sexual gatekeeping", inceldom and how women are b*tches for not dating or for divorcing a man, and show 0 interest in women's lives, actual bodies and female-dominated subcultures, because they don't have to care.
We're fed media where men are morally conscious characters who can feel empathy for others, and so often because we don't even register women as human beings, don't realise that this empathy only works on other men. This convinces so many women that if men show no empathy for them and treat them differently, that it's her that's doing something wrong, rather than this being simply the system working as intended. If only she was nice and kind, if only she convinced him and proved to him that women are not inferior, if only she was a "cool girl" that men like who gave him relationships or sex (but also if you do that you're a wh*re) etc.

(Feb 15 2025, 3:30 PM)Clover Young girls grow up in such a world, where they are excluded from fishing/outdoorsy social group-bonding events because "oh it's a boys trip", and then people wonder why ROGD is a thing and why girls suddenly think they can claim they're "boys" and escape all this.

Agree with everything you said 👍
You see so many TIFs and NotLikeOtherGirls desperately chase men, trying to prove themselves to them and to suck up to them to get even a sliver of that sense of normalcy back from when they were children, when you weren't treated as just a walking sex doll for men, and then lash out at the "bad" women for making that impossible for them because their "bros" see them as nothing but a sex doll by association. They adamantly refuse to accept the system is rigged against them and keep thinking they can somehow crack the secret of male approval. Men's contempt and misogyny always exist for those other bad women, not for ME. I'm supposed to have special access into the boys club, I'm not lame like the other girls.

Edited Feb 16 2025, 8:59 AM by YesYourNigel.

I refuse to debate two obvious facts: 1. the patriarchy exists 2. and that's a bad thing

YesYourNigel

Feb 15 2025, 9:21 PM #10

(Feb 15 2025, 1:01 AM)drdee Men have the right to do 'men-only' things

Quote:there's some good legitimate reason for, particularly, an older man to spend some time with two younger men (to help teach them to be good men - 'men things' isn't just about sports and outdoor activities).

Quote:I believe in the right to have single-sex activities and spaces, and for dad-son and mom-daughter time for role modeling.

(Feb 15 2025, 8:45 AM)Chernobog And she's eleven, so this may be her last chance to enjoy this environment before puberty hits and every adult in her life has to be fucking weird about it.

Quote:Shit like this is where it starts, and I hope that girl's brother and cousin speak up for her and tell Dad they have just as much if not more fun when she's around.

(Feb 15 2025, 3:30 PM)Clover Young girls grow up in such a world, where they are excluded from fishing/outdoorsy social group-bonding events because "oh it's a boys trip", and then people wonder why ROGD is a thing and why girls suddenly think they can claim they're "boys" and escape all this.

I refuse to debate two obvious facts: 1. the patriarchy exists 2. and that's a bad thing

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